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Your not alone in your support for Bush’s Iraqi policiy.
It not be the right thing but I have to laugh at the left in their dismay at his policy working.
It is in the human nature to want to be free, weather it’s the slaves in the 1800s in America, or the oppressed in Iraq.

The elections in Iraq, not quite in the same way the November elections did, shocked the world in their positive outcome. Everyone, left, right, curved, are hoping Iraq thrives after this, no matter how long it takes. If Iraq does thrive, it will be part of Bush’s legacy. The world will know over the next 3-50 years.

In a lot of ways it’s a shining example of perseverance, and gives a ray of hope to a part of the world that has been in turmoil too long.

It’s easy to say this from in front of a computer screen, though. I’m not dead, or maimed, or missing a loved one. My home is intact, I feel safe walking around, night or day. I do wonder if this feat might’ve been accomplished later with less loss of life, less loss of respect for America. The example of Iraq’s elections is a good one. The example America set in invading another country, lying to the world, and carrying on in belligerent tones - that example I hope no one follows.

I find it hard to believe that the reaction in the Arab world was that ecstatic (100%?! You couldn’t get 100% support for world peace!), when you consider the tepid reaction here in the US. Look here to see what I mean:

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

Even now, 53% disapprove of how Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, and 47% think the invasion was the wrong decision. These people can’t all be bitter, pissy liberals. So don’t go making space on Mt. Rushmore yet…

The point that Thomas raises is a good one - there is a dimension that is missing from the article. I won’t argue that there’s a group of Bush-haters that would like to see everything he touches turn to crap, just to promote their own agendas to discredit him.

That’s a vast minority, though. It’s very possible to be against the war, but in favor of elections. My first choice would’ve been to use other methods to remove Saddam, if that was necessary as a top priority.

Having the elections is a good thing, when seen on its own, and I do admire the perseverance of the people responsible (and the voters in Iraq) to pull it off. But put in the context of the damage and cost, both in innocent lives and money, I still think there were better ways and higher priorities.

The worldwide availability of cell phones and the internet has make it impossible for a dictator to keep his people ignorant. We have seen the fall of the Taliban, and with it the liberation of girls and women in Afghanistan. A huge acheivement for freedom and for feminism. In Iraq a dictator is down and free elections are in effect. How can any American be anything but proud and enthusiastic about all of this?? Our country is certainly responsible in part for these awesome acheivements.

Indeed. Now we will see if the Elections bring about Security. I should point out that only a small number of Sunnis participated while a vast number of Kurds and Shiates voted. All this was expected. Now we will see what transpires. With luck, we will have the troops and money to maintain security for the next 5 years.

I especially like this comment.

The aftermath is also better than we could have hoped. As expected, the Shiites won, but the leading party did not win by enough seats to predominate in the writing of the constitution. They will have to reach out to others and they are doing it.

It seems that your beloved Bush has high aspirations for democracy in action in Iraq but can’t seem to grasp the concept here at home. I guess that explains why the white house is governing like it won a mandate while shutting out half the country’s views. It is clearly evident that the right is attempting to destroy “obstructionists” or anyone who stands in the way of their agenda.

That is not reaching out….oops forgot, Bush is the great uniter, not divider.

Woody

To clarify: The figures I mention where not a poll of individuals. They are the results of a content analysis of media outlets on their opinion and editorial pages. It is a rough measure that shows trends. If there are only three media outlets in a country and all three are positive, it is 100%. I included it to show the difference between European and Arab media in their immediate reaction to the legitimacy of the elections. I thought it was interesting that only 40% of Euro outlets had positive comments and the number was significantly higher among Arabs, who you would guess might not be as favorable as America’s long time allies.

A further clarification: News outlets are structured differently in different parts of the world. Some rely more on direct quotations; others have more commentary. German electronic media, for example, features more analysis and commentary by their own reporters. The dearth of positive comments about what was certainly a positive outcome (compared to earlier predictions) shows some bias. Many of these same commentators had good things to say about the Palestinian elections, which were also successful, but had a lower turnout.

J.Anthony -
Thanks for the post. I think you made a mistake in the title; it should have been called, “I Told You So”. Or perhaps, “Price of Crow Rises at Blue-State Supermarkets”.

I was not a WatchBlog writer when the war in Iraq began, but the archives of my own blog bear out the record that I was firmly against the U.S. invading Iraq when it happened. After the violence began and the oil didn’t flow as quickly as planned, I said “I told you so” to my conservative friends quite a bit. If faced with the decision again, I would again say “Don’t do it”. It cost too much, and was too poorly planned in March, 2003. However, I’m becoming convinced that the good results may end up outweighing the costs. Seeing the Libyan climb-down and stirrings of democracy throughout the Arab world is too great an effect to brush aside.

The final analysis? Bush took a risk that I still believe was unwise, but it paid off. It’s like winning at Russian Roulette: you can be congratulated for doing well, but it doesn’t mean you should keep playing.

Every decent person hopes for an improvement for those who live in Iraq. The straw argument that those who opposed Bush did not want a good outcome for the Iraqi people is an example of putting words in someone else’s mouth. The fact is that those who opposed Bush’s plans were against his methods. There was a time just before the war when we had Saddam convinced to go into exile, and we didn’t follow through because Bush wanted a war, plain and simple. The war has been hard on Iraq and on us, and the elections could have been accomplished with much less bloodshed. Even now, we don’t know what the future holds for Iraq: a strong man as brutal as Saddam to hold the country together, a fundamentalist Muslim government that oppresses just as much, or an enlightened (do conservative Christians hate that word over there, too?) democracy with increased freedom for all. Try not to gloat in the presence of so many maimed and dead, American, Arab, and others. Humility comes easy or it comes hard.

Jack,

It is quite possible that despite Mr. Bush’s ham-handed manner, good may at last come out of it.
I guess he does deserve some credit in that.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
:}

I didn’t say I told you so. What I always tried to get everyone to do was to look at the long view. Many mistakes were made on all sides in the run up to the war. Saddam underestimated the danger. The French, with their promise to veto any resolution that threatened force, help him keep this attitude. President Bush relied on poor intelligence. So many people were helping Saddam overcome sanctions. The list is long. If we knew then what we know now, things would be different, but maybe not better.

What I found difficult to swallow was the pessimistic attitude that seemed to invite and even revel in American failure. I don’t think this was conscious on the part of most Americans, but I am convinced that some others were more than happy at the prospect of a long time of troubles for us.

When your friends have trouble, you help your friends. Even if you disagreed with what got them into trouble in the first place. Some of our friends didn’t seem to understand this.

We have to learn from the past, but we can’t dwell there and we can’t let past animosities blind us to a better future. There is a historic opportunity in the Middle East. People can disagree about how we got there, but it is an opportunity nevertheless. If it was a costly victory, that is only more reason not to squander what we won.

I think the words of Abraham Lincoln are appropriate.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Wimp

If you believe Saddam would have gone into voluntary exile, I have some land in Florida you might want to buy.

Jack

Whether I believe Saddam would have gone into exile is not the point. Scoffing does not bring back the lives lost because we as a nation didn’t test your hypothesis that he wouldn’t go into exile. You owe those dear souls an apology.

It would not have been possible to test his intentions. Removing sanctions, withdrawing U.S. forces etc would have restored him to power. His record over more than two decades was that he exploited every weakness. It was an unrealistic proposal made through third parties – if made at all. There is no evidenced that the proposal even came from Saddam.

Restoring Saddam to power would have meant the genocide of our friends the Kurds. The U.S. treated them poorly on two previous occasions. I am glad the George Bush didn’t sell them down the river a third time.

There is no indication that the Saddam problem could have been solved peacefully. The choice was leaving him in power astride one of the most volatile regions in the world or acting to end his regime. We now know we were wrong about WMD. But we also know we were wrong to believe sanctions were working. Saddam had waged aggressive war against four of his neighbors. These wars cost literally millions of lives. He murdered thousands of his own people.

Keeping Saddam in the box required constant U.S. pressure. U.S. troops had to be stationed in Saudi. You will recall that this was Osama bin Laden’s biggest complaint against the U.S. Saddam attacked U.S. and British planes patrolling the no fly zones. He paid money to suicide bombers. People have forgotten now that human rights groups estimated that sanctions were killing 50,000 Iraqi children each year, since Saddam diverted the oil for food money. They forget that during sanctions Saddam drained the marshes of southern Iraq, creating an ecological disaster, to wipe out people who had lived there for millennia. This was not a peaceful place. It wasn’t a question of whether people would die. It was only how many and for how long.

Insurgents kill dozens of people every week. That is true. Saddam’s secret police and oppressive policies certainly killed that many and more. Some of the insurgents are probably the same guys. We turn up mass graves and evidence of atrocities all the time. And it would have gone on for a long time. I regret the loss of life. But the world owes an apology to the dear souls murdered by Saddam even under the noses of UN sanctions right until the minute U.S. forces moved in.

We have to learn from the past, but we can’t dwell there and we can’t let past animosities blind us to a better future. There is a historic opportunity in the Middle East. People can disagree about how we got there, but it is an opportunity nevertheless.

There are opportunities to be certain, but from where I’m standing, I don’t see us making any honest attempts to grab any of them. You say we need to learn from our past, and I completely agree, I just don’t see this administration heeding that advice. While we remove one dictator from power, we continue to support one (Saudi Arabia) and start supporting another (Pakistan). We know that SA is paying off the same terrorist groups we (and they) are supposed to be fighting so that can maintain power. The Pakistani intelligence and nuclear scientists are selling weapons technology to North Korea, and who knows who else. I understand that all situations are unique, and need to be handled uniquely, but I’m becoming more and more fearful that this administration is going to punt these issues on to the next generation and we’ll be dealing with situations far worse than what we had with Iraq. Learning from our past means learning from our last mistake: Afghanistan. You don?t have to look far to get the stories that aren’t getting reported: The central government, at best, has only control of Kabul. The drug trade is better than ever, and the country is in danger of becoming a narco state and nearly every part of the central government has been compromised by the drug industry. In many regions, local war lords are re-instating the very fundamentalist theological rule we had been told we vanquished. And the elections haven?t changed any of this. Making mistakes is normal. I do not blame Bush for making mistakes. I blame him for his complete inability to at anytime accept anything might possibly not be going correctly, or that any mistakes have been wrong. Or that any one who disagrees with him is some how acting against the US or with ?the terrorists? In fact, the only thing I see him learning anything is how to continue to evolve his marketing plan for this administration.

What I always tried to get everyone to do was to look at the long view. Many mistakes were made on all sides in the run up to the war.

If we’re going to look at the long view, this vote, sadly, means very little. The test for Iraq, like all new democracies isn’t getting the first election under their belt, it?s going to be the second, the third, the fourth. It’s having in people in power willing give up that power to others they may or may not like, and doing so voluntarily. It’s making sure that in the next election we still have a diverse set of parties and ideologies. We can’t forget: Saddam had elections. They were just a mockery. The long view is the one we need to have, you’re right. But looking at the long view, we haven’t even made it to base camp, we’ve just put the equipment in our pack to start the journey.

Jack,

People on this blog accused me of being the last man standing who would defend the Bush Iraq policy.

Sounds strangely familiar.

Great post Jack. Keep em coming! In the immortal words of Will Farrel, “Don’t mess with texas.” Yeah haw! Now where did I put that 10 gallon hat?

Jack:

I was starting to believe I was the only supporter of President Bush on this web site. I appreciate your post & agree.

Do you notice how the left continually raises the bar. At first we couldn’t win, then we couldn’t have an election by a certain date, then we should not have the election yet (wait until a later date), then if we do have an election ,it won’t mean anything, & now after success we are told , “but what about the next election & the one after that?”. I think what we are seeing is a complete meltdown of the left.

I had no idea so many Republicans were hoping for another anti-US, pro_Iranian Islamist state in the Middle East.

But I guess if that’s what you wanted - mission accomplished!

The final analysis? Bush took a risk that I still believe was unwise, but it paid off. It’s like winning at Russian Roulette: you can be congratulated for doing well, but it doesn’t mean you should keep playing.

An elegant summary of my feelings, Chops.

Jack-
Problem is, Bush did not keep his head. He pushed us into the war in a way that made it very difficult to get out and save face. If we had made it more about him than the weapons, I agree with that other fellow we would have gained better support if we had made it about Saddam, especially since we were being pre-emptive about it.

The difference between a pre-emptive war and a defensive one is quite clear: In a defensive war, you only have to be right about the fact that you were attacked, or your interests threatened. In a pre-emptive or preventative war, though, you have to be substantially right about why you’re going to war, since the breach of the peace is yours.

In WWII, our postwar occupations had the support of our grievances. Here, our support depended greatly on what we found. We claimed there was a threat there, and we got proved wrong. Might it have been easier to simply rely on the hard facts, and not indulge in deceptions and half-truths to get people on board?

Fact is, good intentions and bad executions can feed into each other to make things worse. The good intentions can make people take inordinant pride in their theories and ideologies, and ignore the warning signs of their mistakes.

Blaine-
First, what’s wrong with raising the bar? I thought you guys were supposed to do your best! Second, I think you vastly oversimplify and stereotype our positions here. We’re trying to get things done the right way, and in case you don’t remember, nobody had any guarantees at that point. Plus, our final position here is that Bush needs to do the follow through on his success here, and not just rest on his laurels as he’s done time and again.

In short, we’ve been trying to keep the fires burning under him, to encourage his best behavior, trying to keep our party competitive in the marketplace of ideas. That’s not a crime is it? To not participate in the Bush cult of personality? I’d just as soon remain a skeptic.

“Do you notice how the left continually raises the bar. At first we couldn’t win, then we couldn’t have an election by a certain date, then we should not have the election yet (wait until a later date), then if we do have an election ,it won’t mean anything, & now after success we are told , “but what about the next election & the one after that?”. I think what we are seeing is a complete meltdown of the left.” - Blaine

I think what you’re seeing is consistency, in fact. The “left” (Good Lord, I wish people would stop that) believe, and have believed, that Bush is not doing it right. Even if the entire Middle East becomes a peace-loving democracy, which would be wonderful news, America has lost. I’ll say it again: If this is leading by example, what if other countries decide that might makes right, that shirking the U.N. is fine. It’s the precedents he’s setting that are disrupting the world more than any single battleground.

“What price freedom?” Lives lost, dignity lost, respect lost, faith in our government lost, the downfall of the separation of church and state, outlandish laws being considered in our land of the free (constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage…since when in America is someone born a second class citizen?), and he continues his belligerent attitude to this day.

What, was he bored?

Do you notice how the left continually raises the bar. At first we couldn’t win, then we couldn’t have an election by a certain date, then we should not have the election yet (wait until a later date), then if we do have an election ,it won’t mean anything, & now after success we are told , “but what about the next election & the one after that?”. I think what we are seeing is a complete meltdown of the left.

Sorry for raising the bar. I’ll to march lockstep more in the future. But, just for the sake of argument. Lets talk about the success. We shut down the country for 3 days, and only a hand full of people died on election day. Now, I’m not going to say that nothing good happened. But at the same time, it’s foolish and dangerous to pretend that this is anything other than what it is. We made a step forward.

The Republicans have always made Statements that things would get better. The Fall of Baghdad, the Capture of Saddam, the First Insurrection of Falluja, the Fall of Falluja, the Insurrection of Mosul and so on…. Let us hope the Right is telling the Truth this time.

Did I mention the Army Reserves are offering $10,000 as an Enlistment Bonus?

I’ve been reading about Sudan lately (because of Hotel Rwanda), and the origins of the Sudanese conflict remind me of Iraq. Basically, you have an educated class and a tribal class. The educated class has been trying to force the tribal class to live under their rules and their authorities. The tribal class has different views. The British solidified the problem way back when, by enunciating the divisions. But the long term nature of the conflict is a result of the inability of the classes to respect the rights of the other class.

Iraq will live or die by the ability of the parties to respect one another. The U.S. was lucky that our founders were fine with a loose federal government that respected the smaller states as well as the larger ones. Will Iraqi leaders be as respectful?

The best thing that Bremer did was try to establish organizations based on job description rather than ethnicity or religious affiliation. His hope was to encourage people to identify with their jobs first.

Plain and simply put, there are no guarantees with nation building. So much rides on the integrity and respectfulness of the leaders. In addition, there are few (if any) examples of nation building working in the long term. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

In any case, my problem has always been this:
War is a terrible tool. Sanctions are a terrible tool. In fact, all the tools we have available to fight evil are poor ones. Why were Roosevelt and Wilson heroes? They used these poor tools because they were forced to, but they dreamed of a more honorable, humane way to defeat evil in the future. That is why they worked so hard on international institutions.

These institutions were rife with problems back then. They knew that. They recognized their weaknesses. But because they dreamed of a day when we could confront evil with humane tools, they dedicated themselves to bettering these institutions.

Sure, the U.N. is riddled with problems. But it’s our long-term solution. It could be Camelot. But it takes a lot of faith, and a lot of hard work.

Punitive sanctions under Clinton were just as wrong as an elective war under Bush.

I prefer it when we fight over who is more generous rebuilding Indonesia. I wish we would fight over who gets to spend more on infrastructure in Kabul.

Building infrastructure makes lasting change. That’s what we learned in the 1940’s. Let’s do that again.

Julia

Do you notice how the left continually raises the bar. At first we couldn’t win, then we couldn’t have an election by a certain date, then we should not have the election yet (wait until a later date),

Ever notice how the Right continually manufactures out of thin air, unsubstantiated, alleged objections and supposed doubting, unattributed pronouncements of impending Coalition failures by the Left? I guess we’ll need to remember that during the Bush Presidential period, history will be written by the incompetent.

Bill Maher said exactly what those of us on the Left know as fact - that the courageous Iraqi people risked their lives to go to the polls, to tell the Americans to get the hell out of their country!

If you’re only getting Fox Talon GOPUSA News piped into your home and PC, this visceral feeling of vindication by those (newly) supporting Bush’s handling of Iraq, is no surprise. This is the same crowd that should come in handy to help justify a Iran Invasion, insisting (with no fresh corroborating Intel) that an oppressed Iranian Youth Movement yearning for American-style democracy, is poised to overthrow the mullahs with our assistance.

It’s nice to see this many commenters here taking credit for having steadfast faith in Bush’s clarity and vision. But, knowing an Iraqi Democracy will soon look nothing like the idyllic ‘Arab Camelot’ being crafted by the Right currently, I wonder how many will return to defend the administration when reality sets in?

I wonder how many will return to defend the administration when reality sets in?

Watch what happens when the Islamic morals police are organized and Iraqi women become second-class citizens by law.

I do notice how the Right disappears when things are normal in Iraq aka “Complete Chaos”. I expect Iraq to disappear from the Red Column again when the Civil War/Islamic Regime breaks out. Conservatives are very good at ignoring reality after all.

Bert:
It must be a coincidence that you would use the word “incompetent” & “Bill Maher” in the same post.

“Watch what happens when the Islamic morals police are organized and Iraqi women become second-class citizens by law.” Is this an example of “unsubstantiated”?

To all:
It is amazing how many on the left want to appear to say nice things. It just so happens there is always a “but” attached.
Having elections was a good thing…but there were better ways!
I guess he does deserve some credit in that… but even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
Good job Mr. President, but it was luck, chance…what is wrong with giving credit where credit is due. God job Mr. President, you had a plan & it worked.

I haven’t seen any “laurels” that did not have “buts” attached.

You would think some people would learn from history. The terrorists ‘gods” are the “gods of forces”. They do not understand negotiations. Haven’t you learned that by watching the Palestinians with Israel? The only time those people back down is when you come at them with a bigger stick. Example, Saddam wanted to go into exile after we moved on him.

Some people seem to have things backwards.

It’s actually like this:
‘R’ = Realistically Resolute
‘D’ = Disillusioned State of Denial

We Republicans understand that if the tables were turned and the Dems were in ‘power’ the conversation would be the same yet the participants would have reverse roles.
I don’t know how many Dems would admit that this is the case since it would diminish their arguement.

Kirk and I had been batting back and forth statistics from the USAID site a while back.

One of our discussions was on the improvement of education for younger children. I said that while it was true that we had rebuilt many schools, this wasn’t helpful if parents were too scared to let their children attend. Kirk asked me for statistics, and I didn’t have any reliable ones on hand.

I knew I’d seen it somewhere. Here it is:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/iraq.html

Unicef says that attendance has fallen to around 65% from over 76% before the war. A few articles I read claimed 45% attendance in Mosul (which is a more dangerous area).

I’m not sitting in judgement on this, as I don’t know how you establish security in a foreign country. But this is one of the issues you get when you overthrow a government (with the result that the security infrastructure collapses).

I also find it interesting that a lot of the claims I read on the USAID site that were touted as U.S. achievements, are on the UNICEF site (A U.N. program) as UNICEF achievements. UNICEF’s largest donor for Iraq has been Japan.

Although, on the other hand, it’s nice to see us working with U.N. programs.

Anyway, 300 billion dollars on such a risky proposition is something I never would have proposed. If we spent 75 billion on Afghanistan infrastructure, the results would be amazing. Imagine spending 10 billion in Palestine on infrastructure improvements? (Which I doubt would be blown up, like in Iraq). Or what about Turkey? It’s a muslim democracy. What about Pakistan? It’s an unstable muslim nuclear proliferator. How about investing in infrastructure there, and providing an option (in the form of jobs) to the madrassas? Wouldn’t all these things make us safer, and promote peace and liberty in the Arab world?

Anyway, it looks like we have at least another 100 billion to invest before it’s all over.

It’s a noble ideal. I hope democracy in Iraq works long term. It’s just expensive, and risky. (And I agree with the other guys here, we were not told that the goal was to “free Iraq” but to “protect America”. I never agreed with invasion of Iraq to “protect America”. Protect America from what, exactly?)

Kudos to Bush for seeing the election through (once he was forced into it by Sistani). And kudos to the administration for doggedly continuing the infrastructure projects they have going.

Julia

Raising the bar is not the complaint I have against the critics of President Bush’s Iraq policy. The problem is ex-post-facto thinking.

In any reasonably complex situation there are a lot of options and opinions. After the fact, it is easy to see which among the hundreds of them were valid. We all give ourselves the benefit of the doubt and come to believe we advocated or would have chosen the best alternatives.

This case is even more pernicious. As things go right or better than anticipated, lefties check them off and say that they would have happened anyway or that they would have done the exact same thing. The Bush administration deserves no credit for winning the war much faster and with fewer casualties than critics predicted. They deserve no credit for preventing widespread sabotage of the oil industry and no credit in the general case for toppling a really evil dictator. All that becomes a given. Now we just move on to the mistakes. But you can’t do that. Some “mistakes” follow from earlier successes.

The quick mobile war that minimized casualties also meant that large areas were not pacified. A larger force would have done a better job of settling the post-war, but would have moved slower and taken AND INFLICTED many more casualties. The slower pace would have given Saddam time to sabotage the oil wells. Besides, where were all these extra men and machines coming from? So the good thing caused the bad thing. Our choice is constrained. Your third alternative is not realistic.

I don’t ask you guys not to criticize. I don’t even mind very much when you raise the bar. The Administration is doing a pretty good job of jumping the higher hurtles. But you cannot cherry pick incidents to prove your case. You have to pick up both ends of the stick.

President Bush made some bad choices, but critics of the Bush policy have to face the fact that their predictions have not been good either. I don’t care what you all say today. Go back to what you said last year or even a couple of months ago. Most people were predicting that elections wouldn’t take place on time or that they would be a bloody mess.

I made my prediction in writing back in November. I don’t mind repeating it here and now. “Iraq will hold the elections on schedule. Most of the country will vote, although there will be sections where voting is impossible. There will be violence, but less than anticipated. A coalition of Shiites and Kurds will win and set up an unstable coalition. They have effective control over more than 80% of the country, including almost all the oil wealth. Terrorists continue sporadic attacks. The Iraqi authorities will occasionally respond with excessive force, which will upset the chattering classes, but gradually reduce violence. Everybody claims that they predicted this relatively good outcome and liberals attack the Iraqi government for not being democratic enough or inclusive of all points of view. Pundits point to potential problems and complain that the economy and organization are not up to Swiss standards. But it actually works well. Media attention drains away from Iraq. Academics will begin to develop complicated theories proving that this outcome was inevitable and that George Bush somehow actually slowed the wonderful process.”

In fact, things are working out better than I predicted and MUCH BETTER than any of the Bush critics thought possible.

Bert:
It must be a coincidence that you would use the word ?incompetent? & ?Bill Maher? in the same post.

Difference is Blaine, that when Bill Maher is incompetent, nobody dies.

“We Republicans understand that if the tables were turned and the Dems were in ‘power’ the conversation would be the same yet the participants would have reverse roles.”

Not to harp, but if the “tables were turned” we’d have about 1200 fewer distraught American military families and about 100,000 more Iraqis. The Iraq war wouldn’t have happened yet because we wouldn’t go in without multilateral support (Poland not withstanding), nor would we claim a false premise for waging war on a sovereign nation.

America would be safer because we didn’t drum up a world’s worth of hostility towards us by shrugging off our allies’ common sense and conducting imperialism in the Middle East. The Taliban reign would still be ended and America would continue to have garnered support for raising the world’s awareness of terrorism and perhaps reminding everyone that whether you have the bigger bat or not doesn’t matter if you’re not out to conquer.

Unfortunately we can’t change history and all we can do is cross our fingers, close our eyes, and pray this all turns out all right for those who are left.

“I haven?t seen any ?laurels? that did not have ?buts? attached.”- Blaine

I guess that if you go into an adventure like this, it’s too much to ask that it be done correctly, not on the fly.
A battle is a fluid situation, preparing for a war is not.
Even if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, pulled off the election in Iraq, the lead up (planning) for the war itself was badly botched. It’s easy to blow up a country from 25,00 feet above it.
“You go into war with what you have”, is only applicable if your enemy is knocking at the front gate.
The fact that we would win this conflict was never in doubt, because of our technological, not our moral superiority. The waste of manpower, money, and political capital, however, was horrendous.
The blitzkrieg accross Iraq was indeed impressive. It would have been more impressive, however, had we taken the time to secure what we had taken, before moving on.
Dispite the draw down of our military, we had the resources, and we chose not to use them.
During Desert Storm we had over 500,000 troops to push Saddam’s army out of a country the size of New Jersey. This time we were trying to invade AND take over a country the size of California with less than half that number of troops. Less troops means more, not less casualties.

Rushing into a war of choice is bone stupid.

It’s not too much to ask that our leaders not only do the right thing, but to the right thing correctly.

Rocky

This is exactly the problem I mentioned above.

The blitzkrieg is impressive but it works precisely because you bypass strong points and don’t stop to secure everything before you move on. That is the nature of blitzkrieg and what makes it different from alternative. You don’t get to have both the fast movement and the large force that secures all the parts.

You can’t have both. Like Bush you have to choose. So do you choose large force set battle, trench warfare and give Saddam the time to set all the oil wells on fire?

Of course, there remains the alternative of letting Saddam alone. It turns out he doesn’t have WMD, but he does have a program to rebuild them. He has the proven intention to do the U.S. and its allies harm and a history of reckless behavior. He has attacked four of his neighbors and his wars have cost millions of lives. It also turns out that he is successfully ducking sanctions and the only people actually suffering are the roughly 50,000 Iraqis who are dying because he is diverting money from the oil for food program. That doesn’t include those Saddam’s police are actually murdering every day.

I am not sure where we would be with the status quo alternative, but I bet we wouldn’t have held any elections. Again, it’s your choice, but you don’t have the option of no Saddam and no war. You also don’t have the choice of getting the French and the Russians to help. They have already told you they won’t be going along no matter what.

Thomas,
“Not to harp, but if the “tables were turned” we’d have about 1200 fewer distraught American military families and about 100,000 more Iraqis. The Iraq war wouldn’t have happened yet because we wouldn’t go in without multilateral support (Poland not withstanding), nor would we claim a false premise for waging war on a sovereign nation.

America would be safer because we didn’t drum up a world’s worth of hostility towards us by shrugging off our allies’ common sense and conducting imperialism in the Middle East. The Taliban reign would still be ended and America would continue to have garnered support for raising the world’s awareness of terrorism and perhaps reminding everyone that whether you have the bigger bat or not doesn’t matter if you’re not out to conquer.”

YES! The Dems would still be sitting on their hands hoping (not praying) that the problems would just go away by either choosing to ignore or using tactics that proved not to be working in our fight against Islamic Radical Terrorists.
A stray bomb now and then was not getting rid of the growing problem.
A problem that was going to grow worse with or without the invasion of Iraq.
If it is growing faster it will lead to mistakes being made by the terrorists. If they feel like they have to make a greater impact quicker due to the spreading of democracy they will ultimately lose support.
People will choose freedom over tyranny.

Jack,

If you move forward fast and then move a securing force in behind it you can have both.
By rushing into this conflict and not having more support and as a result, not having more troops, the securing of Iraq was hamstrung from the beginning.
By pounding our chest before going in, the element of supprise had already been compromised. We had the staging areas, we had the time, we didn’t take it.

Look, we were all heartened by the pulling down of that statue of Saddam, however the allowing the looting and anarchy of the following two weeks was unconscionable.

I don’t doubt that we went into Iraq with good intentions.

We should have given it just a little more thought.

Rocky

A blitzkrieg with a large securing force is an oxymoron. The forces have to move quickly. In order to do that they purposely bypass some enemy units and leave some enemy strong point intact.

We chose the faster pace mobile attack and reaped the benefit of a shorter war with the consequence of a harder post-war. The supply lines were already stretched. More forces require more supplies. The more supplies, the greater the support forces needed. Supply lines have to be protected. The slower we move the more likely even small enemy forces can organize to attack the supply lines. The more supply forces on the ground, the greater the number of soft targets to be protected. Pretty soon your blitzkrieg troops are protecting their supply lines and support troops and nobody is moving at all.

Taking advantage of one option forecloses others. You can’t have them all. We should of gone in with a fast mobile force AND a large slow moving occupying force AND the supplies necessary to keep the fast force moving AND the supplies necessary to keep the slow force alive AND minimize casualties. You can’t have all those things at the same time.

Our challenge was to minimize casualties – both Iraqi and American, maintain as much infrastructure as possible, and prevent widespread sabotage of the oil infrastructure. The quick strike accomplished those goals.

In many ways we OVERESTIMATED Iraqi organization and didn’t expect a total breakdown of order. Beyond that, some of that breakdown was not mere anarchy. We now know that Saddam’s forces organized much of the looting and destruction. That destruction could be logically counted as part of the war.

There is a legitimate debate about how this war was fought. This is the case with any war at any time. It will be discussed for generations at the war colleges and military academies. The students will discuss the successes and failures, but overall when it all said and done, the things done right will outweigh the things gone wrong. My conviction is that ten years from today, we will still regret the losses, but we will come to see that by acting we avoided greater destruction and helped the cause of freedom.

The problem is, we have people with no concept of military strategy trying to second-guess our military leaders.
Their minds are clouded with pure hatred and no amount of discussion will change anything. Someone wrote earlier, there is a fringe of the left that is radical. I don’t believe it is a fringe. I believe all of the left is radical.
A logical statement is made & the answer is war, hate, murder, venom, venom, venom. Does everyone the left drink the same cool-aid?

The New York Times stated that it would cost a minimum of 160 billion dollars to wage war in Iraq. That was routinely scoffed at (Stupid liberal whiny papers!). Wolfowitz is on the record as stating it would be around 10 billion dollars and he couldn’t imagine the occupation costing more than running the war. Rumsfield stated that the looting was a “surprise”. And that you can’t “plan for everything”.

All you have to do is look at any case study of us invading a country. Any War College paper on the mistakes we’ve made in nation building. We repeated the vast majority of them in Iraq. Why? Because our leaders (and our citizens) concentrate on the organization of war, and not the organization of peace. We’ve done it for 50 years. It’s no surprise we keep screwing it up. Democrat, Republican, it makes no difference.

Everyone says sanctions “didn’t work” and that Saddam was “gaming the system”. In other words, the population was suffering while evil folks stole money and got away with murder. Well, the population is suffering now, while looters have stolen money and continue to get away with murder. We have corruption in all the companies doing infrastructure projects. You’re going to have problems with whatever solution you use.

It’s a fact of life that you have corruption. 1 out of 3 contractors I hire rips me off, and I spend more time itemizing their receipts than I do telling them what to do. People suck.

Of course the sanctions were gamed. What do you think Cuba is doing? Nevertheless, sanctions do keep countries from building up arsenals. There are plenty of ways to make them less awful to the populace, but our government is too lazy to be moral (And yes, that was also under Clinton. Just send Bechtel in to do the electricity projects, for God’s sake, if you’re so worried about parts being used for dual use. The Iraqis would be fine with it).

We are doing as good of a job as I think can be done right now. We’re in a bad position, because of early mistakes that can’t be undone. We’ve lost a lot of good opportunities. Iraq is 5 years behind where it could have been if we’d only not made the mistakes we made the last 10 times we did this. (such as planning for looting, like we do in the U.S. whenever any natural disaster occurs. Everyone does realize that Japan suffered from the same type of looting, organized by officers just EXACTLY as happend in Iraq, right? Or look at Panama).

We still have not started working on the planning and infrastructure necesarry for us to wage a “shock and awe” reconstruction campaign. The DoD spends 3 years creating detailed battle plans for waging war on any country on the Earth. We don’t do this for reconstruction.

Our mindset is screwed up.

Are we a “Christian” country or not? Do we plan ways to make the world more stable? Or do we plan ways to kick the crap out of anyone who gives us sass?

It’s really not a Bush thing. It’s an American mindset thing. In the 1940’s the government was populated by leaders who came from the financial and business worlds. They were people dedicated to changing the world through things like the Marshall plan. AND IT WORKED.

The question has always been: What would happen if we enacted the Marshall Plan before the war ever started?

Here’s the real problem:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1576753018/qid=1109469307/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-2527954-7996155?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

What we need is a Department of Peace (which is what State and USAID are supposed to be… ). The Department of Peace should be just as strong as our Department of War/Defense, and have just as much long term planning.

Julia

“The problem is, we have people with no concept of military strategy trying to second-guess our military leaders.” -Blaine

Who also apparantly have no concept of military strategy.

Sorry I’m so long-winded. But in a nutshell, take a look at Qalat in Afghanistan and the Zabul province. Right after we won the war, thousands of people showed up looking for jobs as policemen or whatever might be needed to start repairing the country. Now it’s an insurgent stronghold. We’ve just started enacting local infrastructure projects, but we’ve wasted so much time and so much goodwill. The job is ten times as difficult.

Why? We don’t have the organization in place to rapidly respond to opportunities for peace. We can get a special forces team out there to kill somebody in two weeks. It takes two years to get a repair team out to start ASKING what should be done.

Stupid. And bad prioritization.

Julia

The Marshall plan was something unique in human history and American generosity and foresight in the post war period is something we can all be proud of, but there are two things you have to remember when you refer to them.

At the time the critics claimed it wasn’t working and that American leadership was incompetent. President Truman left office under a cloud. Members of his cabinet were accused of incompetence and worse. The the wise men of the greatest generation were not appreciated until they were almost gone.

The second thing to recall about the Marshall plan is that it only worked AFTER the war was won. Just imagine offering assistance to Hitler in 1938. It might have helped him conquer Poland faster, but would not have bought peace. You will also recall that even after the war the Soviet Union refused Marshall Plan aid and forbid any of its satellites to take up the offer. In fact the possibility of U.S. help is one of the reasons they cracked down on Czechoslovakia.

The famous novelist John Dos Passos visited Europe right after World War II and shared his observations in the January 7, 1946 edition of Life Magazine. He said, “We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease.” And the “Never has American Prestige in Europe been lower” As it turns out, he and the great many European he talked to were plain wrong.

Some things don’t change.

The fact is that in any complex situation, things don’t work ideally. It is always possible to find fault. How many of you have ever planned and executed the perfect vacation, one where all the hotels were perfect and all the kids were happy all the time. None of you? Was anybody shooting at you while you were trying to catch the trails, planes or automobiles? Of course you all could find fault with any planning done by others. Everything is easy as long as you don’t have to do it.

The mistakes made in the Iraq policy were the kinds of things you would expect. Some were bad and deadly. This is the way things are. Follow the history of any successful political or military operation and you will be unable to find any that were perfectly planned or executed. The policy of the Bush Administration will turn out to be successful.

You will all come to this conclusion in a couple of years. What annoys me is that by then you will figure out why George Bush was merely lucky and anyone else would have done the same. And then you will convince yourself that it would have happened spontaneously.

Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot and a new generation of liberals will look doe eyed at the world and forget that someone had to fight to put it right. And they will pity the misunderstood dictators and believe their smooth words about the root causes of terrorim. And then we will have to do it all again.

“Watch what happens when the Islamic morals police are organized and Iraqi women become second-class citizens by law.” Is this an example of “unsubstantiated”?

It’s no surprise that the Bush fans don’t want to face up to the fact that Iraqis voted overwhelmingly for the Islamist coalition rather than the secular coalition. Every Islamic state has morality police. Every Islamic state treats women as second-class citizens as prescribed in Sharia law.

I’m sincerely hoping that Allawi can pull the Kurds or a substantial majority of Sistani’s coalition over to his side to create a secular political opposition. But it’s pretty unlikely.

As I’ve said here many times, it’s more probable that Sistani’s Islamists will trade Kurdish autonomy for a free hand in the rest of the country.

Jack, frankly, replacing Saddam with an anti-US, pro-Iranian Islamist government is worse than I expected.

Jack:

I always find it amusing that Conservatives always equate Liberals with Cowardice. As if cheering an unjustified, unneeded War is a sign of Bravery. If believing Iraq was justified makes the Right Brave, does it also mean it makes the Right Stupid too?

FYI: Abraham Lincoln and FDR were also LIBERALS. Perhaps its because their Smart that allows them to fight the Good Fight?

Also, despite being such good little Cheerleaders, I have yet to see an increase of good, moral Republicans volunteering for Military Service. I guess your just following your Dear Leaders’ Example. Stay Home and watch someone else fight on TV.

Why is it that democrats are so solidly against democracy? Why do democrats fear the spread of liberty? Why do democrats scream and cry everytime we free a few million more people? Every new democracy on the map is initially rejected by democrat party members. What is it about liberty (and personal responsibilty) that drives liberals so loony?

“Why do democrats scream and cry everytime we free a few million more people?”

Beats,

Please share with us.
How many times have the Republicans freed a few million more people?

Aldous

I have never equated liberalism with cowardice. In the my post above I pay tribute to Harry Truman (a liberal) and I have previously and on many occasions praised people like Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy. Liberalism has a proud history of hardheaded diplomacy and foreign policy. The men most responsible for creating the most courageous, visionary and successful economic and foreign policy in the history of the world, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, George Kennan and Averell Harriman all worked for Democrats. (I keep a picture of George Marshall on my desk to remind me of real greatness.) Back in those days, it was the conservatives who lacked vision and realism. Fortunately some Republicans such as Arthur Vandenberg saw clearly what was in America’s and the world’s interest and they built a bipartisan consensus that endured for more than a generation.

I do believe that liberals – as a group – have lost their perspective and I wish they would get it back. I think their dislike of George Bush is clouding their vision and this is a time when we all need clear vision.

The challenge in the Middle East is the opportunity for this generation’s politicians. George Bush may have stumbled and maybe stumbled into this opportunity, but it is there and it is real. It is time for everyone to move on. This should not remain a conservative (or “neo con”) enterprise. Where is the Democratic Vandenberg?

It is funny, but the leading Democrat who sounds most reasonable on this score these days is Hilary Clinton. The Democrats thought Vandenberg was a dinosaur and that very reputation is what made it possible for him to cooperate. Hilary, we need you.

You keep on mentioning that conservatives should join the military. From my reading of polls, it is clear that Republicans are doing their duty. In fact, I have occasionally heard liberals express unease that the career military tends to be too conservative. We would not want to follow the Roman model where leaders recruited troops based on their political support. In a democracy, it is important that the military be somewhat representative of society. The volunteer force already skews it toward the poorer, more conservative and more southern parts of our population. It is not prudent to advocate a greater drift to the right and the south.

One should never equate the liberals of yesteryear with the liberals of today. Liberalism has changed dramatically from Harry Truman to John Kerry. The democrats have been held hostage by the far left, which emcompasses the neo-liberal Hollywood and it has driven them away from mainstream voters, and rightly so. It looks like with Howard Dean as DNC chairman and Hillary positioning herself for 2008 that the democrats are not interested in change, at least for the better.

An example of a democrat of by-gone times is Zell Miller. Holding true to the hatred of the left wing democrats, what manner of insults were thrown at him. He told you what is wrong with the Democratic Party & he was crucified for doing so. You are not the party of the people. You are the party of special interest groups. Might I say fringe radical groups.

It is good that we live in a free country where anyone can say or write just about anything that comes to their mind. The problem with that is very little goes on in their mind before the mouth starts working. Any idiot can be subjective. He lied and there were better ways to do this and that and whatever. A bunch of little Kerry’s. Stop talking in generalities and state facts or at least what you think the facts are so someone can verify your statements. I haven’t totally agreed with any politician but for Christ sake their human. Some of them are actually trying to do what they think is best for America and the rest of the world, while others try to tear down others for political reasons only. The SS issue is a good example. Why can’t a group of leaders sit down and calmly discuss all the issues and put forth a solution to congress? The polls say, “Garbage in garbage out”. If seen article written at work about project I was associated with and I could hardly reconnize the project. Politics as usual. At the end of the day try to think what would you do or say if the entire world depended on your actions and words. Remember there are all those people out there who would love to see you fail misserably.

It is good that we live in a free country where anyone can say or write just about anything that comes to their mind. The problem with that is very little goes on in their mind before the mouth starts working. Any idiot can be subjective. He lied and there were better ways to do this and that and whatever. A bunch of little Kerry’s. Stop talking in generalities and state facts or at least what you think the facts are so someone can verify your statements. I haven’t totally agreed with any politician but for Christ sake they’re human. Some of them are actually trying to do what they think is best for America and the rest of the world, while others try to tear down people for political reasons only. The SS issue is a good example. Why can’t a group of leaders sit down and calmly discuss all the issues and put forth a solution to congress? The polls say, “Garbage in garbage out”. I’ve seen articles written at work about projects that I was associated with and I could hardly reconnize the project. Politics as usual. Before you go into a fit about how bad someone is try to think, what would you do or say if the entire world depended on your actions and words. Remember there are all those people out there who would love to see you fail misserably.

“It is good that we live in a free country where anyone can say or write just about anything that comes to their mind. The problem with that is very little goes on in their mind before the mouth starts working. Any idiot can be subjective.”

Tim,

This is a disease that has infected people from both parties. It would seem that the only cure is the truth that comes from both sides, a commodity that is quite rare these days.

Tim, here are some facts, I posted them back in October:

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/pdffiles/00249.pdf

page 20 is where it starts getting into historical examples. On page 21 it talks about the problems with looting, the problems faced with vague mision objectives, the problems with a small number of MPs being assigned for running a detention facility, it talks about inadaquete numbers of MPs to deal with protecting vulnerable areas and with creating security, it talks about how the problems were excacerbated by slow and disorganized reserve call-ups, and it talks about how political-military interagency was poor, and many agencies were excluded from Dod planning.

Sound familiar? Is it so impossible to believe that the mistakes we made in Panama have been repeated in Iraq?

…No one has focused on re-structuring the Army so that it is effective at nation-building, and so we routinely muck up our efforts to do so….

http://www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2003/ajan/2_whitehouse.html

http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/iraqquotes_web.htm

http://middleeastinfo.org/article2099.html

Again, hindsight appears to paint the Democrats as being more upfront about how difficult the situation really was, and the administration as either lying or being misinformed. (i.e. vilified Shinseki was right, we needed more than 100,000 troops to secure the country, and everyone who says we made a choice for a lighter force is wrong. We didn’t make a “choice” for the lighter force, we deliberately decided not to call up a larger force for occupation. It wasn’t this either/or situation. You can invade with a light force, and pull up a larger force for occupation. There’s no rule that you can’t do that).

Julia

Thank you Julia, this is the point I was trying/failing to make earlier.

Jack - nice call on election results, and I appreciate your expounding on optimism - a trait that Democrats are in dire need of. Indeed, Hillary is now in the business of painting herself as a moderate, and even trying to find common ground with pro-lifers. If this is for real, she stands a far better chance of reforming her party and grabbing the 2008 nomination than does Howard Dean, and those like him, who have tried to shut up conservative Democrats. Look at the new Democrat senate now, and who’s leading it. There’s a fight coming in the Democrat party, and abortion rights are at the root of it.

Aldous, Lincoln was certainly not the type of liberal we see today. Remember that the government formed by our Founding Fathers - and a strong government at that - made them all “liberal” in a relative sense. Who wanted to see a strong Union at that time? Conservatism in those days would have rested more with individual state rights and control.

Good debate everyone.

Bob,
Obviously, you do not have a clue of what you are talking.

“One should never equate the liberals of yesteryear with the liberals of today. Liberalism has changed dramatically from Harry Truman to John Kerry. The democrats have been held hostage by the far left, which emcompasses the neo-liberal Hollywood and it has driven them away from mainstream voters, and rightly so. It looks like with Howard Dean as DNC chairman and Hillary positioning herself for 2008 that the democrats are not interested in change, at least for the better.”

You don’t even know what a neoliberal is, as it is not Hollywood. Newt Gingrich was a neoliberal and it has nothing to do with liberalism rather liberal in definition. It is a political-economic philosophy. It goes with social justice, free trade, globalization, and free-market. It is the opposite of economic nationalism, fair trade, and opposite of anti-capitalism.

You seriously need to do some research before you make a fool of yourself on Watchblog.

Leon

This liberal – conservative thing is always troublesome and the terms are hard to grasp.

Conservatives in the U.S. follow the original liberal policies. In continental Europe, most liberal parties are more like the Republicans than Democrats. In the U.S. neo-conservatives are descended from radical leftists who saw the light and changed their ideology. In Europe neo-liberals are what we call neo – conservatives. An American liberal in most other countries would be called a social democrat. We should probably think up some new terms.

In the U.S., political parties and ideologies mutate and exchange DNA faster than flu viruses. The Republicans were the national party in the 1920s and the Democrats the party of states rights. Harry Truman with his redistributive ideas on taxes and commitment to national health care looks like a liberal today. But when you look at his emphasis on personal responsibility and muscular foreign affairs, he is more like a modern conservative.

There is plenty of praise and blame to go around on all sides. The past belongs to us all and to none of us.

I think Bob is talking about tone when he talks about the DNC. I lived in New Hampshire during last primary season. I met Howard Dean and heard him speak on several occasions. There is certain nastiness about the way he views his opponents. You can sometimes see it in the media and you can almost feel the heat in person. It fires up the believers, but it not the way to win a majority of the voters. The Dems made a mistake going that route.

I am 100% behind Bush’s decision to go to war. I am glad that he went to get rid of a tyrant that could do anything he wanted without being checked by the UN.

Julia

Thank you for your posts. I haven’t been able to read every link, but the sampling shows that you have really done your homework. I also agree with almost all of your positions.

Everyone else

Do you notice that Julia is the only one among us that reads extensively. She consistently cites facts and doesn’t spend a lot of time pontificating. I guess I was hoping I would get more of this type of discussion out of this site, and less straightforward hot air (and I have been as guilty as anyone). I suggest we all follow her example from now on (he said, knowing it had a snowball’s chance in hell of coming to pass).

Peace out, dogs.

Funky days. Been browsing too long. Like your design simple but effective.